Brennan’s Nomination to Head CIA Advances to Senate Floor

Nominee for CIA Director John Brennan currently serves as President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser and is an architect of the administration’s policy of using drones for targeted strikes against suspected terrorists. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Democrats are pressing for a
vote on John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director as soon as
today, a day after the Obama administration shored up support by
letting lawmakers see legal opinions justifying drone strikes
against U.S. citizens suspected of al-Qaeda ties.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said
he is seeking agreement with Republicans to hold the vote as
soon as today in return for requiring a 60-vote supermajority to
act on the confirmation. He also took procedural action to force
a final vote no later than March 9.

Some Republicans have threatened to hold up the
confirmation, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said today he
objects to a speedy vote on Brennan because of the prospect that
drones could be used someday to attack U.S. citizens on American
soil. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote Paul that he couldn’t
rule out doing so under “an extraordinary circumstance.”

The Senate intelligence committee voted 12-3 behind closed
doors yesterday to recommend that Brennan take charge at the
Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked as an analyst and
clandestine officer for 25 years. The panel’s eight Democrats
and four of its seven Republicans favored Brennan’s appointment,
according to Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who
heads the committee.

“John was straightforward with the committee, answering
all of our questions, and I believe he will be a candid partner
at CIA and a strong leader of that critically important
agency,” Feinstein said. She said Brennan clearly has enough
support in the full Senate to be confirmed.

Killing Americans

Brennan currently serves as President Barack Obama’s
counterterrorism adviser and is an architect of the
administration’s policy of using drones for targeted strikes
against suspected terrorists. The committee acted hours after
the administration agreed to let members of the panel see
classified Justice Department documents on drone attacks.

Some committee members, led by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden
of Oregon, had threatened to hold up Brennan’s nomination until
they could see all of the legal opinions on the matter. Wyden
has said he questioned “the president’s authority to kill
Americans.”

The radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, and his
16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who was born in Denver, were
killed in suspected drone strikes in Yemen in 2011.

Call for Debate

The additional information brought a statement of support
for Brennan’s confirmation from Wyden, Democrat Mark Udall of
Colorado and Republican Susan Collins of Maine.

“In our view, the appropriate next step should be to bring
the American people into this debate” on drones “and for
Congress to consider ways to ensure that the president’s
sweeping authorities are subject to appropriate limitations,
oversight, and safeguards,” the senators said in a statement.

Senate confirmation of Brennan’s nomination would round out
Obama’s second-term national security team. John Kerry was
confirmed as secretary of state on a 94-3 vote on Jan. 29. Chuck
Hagel was approved as defense secretary on a 58-41 vote on Feb.
26. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has
said he hopes the full Senate will vote on Brennan’s
confirmation this week.

Brennan’s nomination has attracted more controversy than
Kerry’s and far less than Hagel’s bruising confirmation fight.

If confirmed, Brennan would take over from Michael Morell,
the CIA’s deputy director, who has been leading the agency on an
acting basis since David Petraeus resigned in November after
admitting to an affair with his biographer.

Clandestine Work

Brennan, 57, joined the CIA in 1980. He performed
clandestine and analytical work with the agency, including
several years in Saudi Arabia, and was director of the National
Counterterrorism Center in 2004 and 2005. He left the government
in 2005 and joined the Analysis Corp., a national security
contractor based in McLean, Virginia, as president and chief
executive officer.

When Obama was elected in 2008, Brennan was considered as a
potential nominee to head the CIA. He withdrew from
consideration after human-rights groups and some Democrats
raised concerns that he had supported, or at least acquiesced
in, the use of harsh interrogation techniques in the fight
against terrorism that critics consider torture -- including
waterboarding, which simulates drowning and was banned by Obama.

Brennan was named assistant to Obama for homeland security
and counterterrorism, a post not requiring Senate confirmation.

Waterboarding Denounced

At Brennan’s confirmation hearing on Feb. 7, senators
challenged him about administration leaks of classified
information to journalists, the interrogation issue and the
drone policies. The White House has pursued the drone program
with limited oversight by Congress or the courts.

Brennan called waterboarding “reprehensible,” and said he
now has “serious questions” about its effectiveness. He said a
review of the interrogation program would be his “highest
priority” if confirmed.

He defended the Obama administration’s decision-making
process about the use of drones, and pledged to ensure that all
actions are legal and “that we do everything possible before we
need to resort to lethal force.”

Brennan also called cyber attacks “one of the most
insidious, one of the most consequential” threats to U.S.
national security.

‘Executioner-in-Chief’

Paul said today on the Senate floor that he objects to a
speedy vote and is prepared to talk for hours about his concern
that the administration might one day use drones against
American citizens located in the U.S.

Obama “will be the executioner-in-chief
if he sees fit,” said Paul, a Tea Party-backed lawmaker who
favors limited government. A drone attack could kill an innocent
American who’s in a cafe or walking down the street, he said.

Paul had asked the administration to explain whether it
believes it has the legal authority to order drone attacks on
U.S. citizens on American territory.

In a March 4 letter, Holder responded that such domestic
use of drones is “entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur and
one we hope no president will ever have to confront.”

Holder said he couldn’t rule it out under an
“extraordinary circumstance.” He cited the December 1941
attack on Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
as examples.

In addition to Paul’s questions on drones, Senator Lindsey
Graham, a South Carolina Republican, has continued to press his
demands for more information about the administration’s handling
of the Benghazi attack, in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S.
ambassador to Libya, was among those killed.

Graham said March 3 on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that
information produced so far by the administration is inadequate.
Feinstein said that the administration is providing more. Tate
Zeigler, a Graham aide, didn’t respond to phone and e-mailed
requests for comment.